Sun in the fun for some, but mostly training for our fearless crew.
What They Say:
Team Guy and Team Kakashi head to the beach. Lee wants to scope out Sakura’s “amazing” new bathing suit, but Guy-sensei makes him train instead. Can Naruto and Konohamaru help him escape Guy-sensei’s clutches? Lee wants to have fun by splitting watermelons, but Guy-sensei turns it into a training exercise. It’s a race for survival to get a crack at the perfect target.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the fun of summer pretty much underway in the series, Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals have worked well to play with the concepts nicely. Particularly as we saw in the previous episode with the whole swimsuit aspect and the way that Rock wants to continue to get closer to Sakura. You can certainly understand his interest in Sakura and why he’s pursuing her, especially in this more comedy oriented series where it’s all for giggles and to make you connect with him more. You can definitely see a lot of potential between the two and I continue to advocate for them, especially since I want Naruto to end up elsewhere.
With the beach fun here, Rock is intent on seeing Sakura and her sexy seashell swimsuit that he’s imagined, going so far as to own one himself which is positively disturbing. The whole road trip aspect is fun and they play things up well here overall as everyone makes their way while those like Tenten and Neji are kind of just along for the ride and the absurdity, especially once Rock and Guy start competing on the beach itself. There’s a lot of fun with how they go at things with such gusto and it often draws others into the way, but it gets positively goofy when they try to deal with a shark and guy just invariably makes things worse. Putting the two together often has good results and this is no exception when you get down to it.
With the second half, the fun on the beach continues well but it gets more complicated for the gang as Guy comes up with another game that serves as practice for them. While everyone wants to do some watermelon cutting, and they all have the skills for it, it instead turns into a game that Guy starts with small watermelons that are on some peoples heads and they have to smack them down in a hunt. That brings in a good number of characters from the crew to have fun with it as they use their varied abilities to achieve their goals all while Guy narrates it. Seeing them be stealthy is fun and the creative way the watermelon hats are dealt with works really well too, making for some good laughs.
In Summary:
Summer fun with this crew is definitely just that, a lot of fun. With the goofy but enjoyable fanservice aspects and the fact that they have no issue in playing it up with the guys as well makes for a lot of good material all around the pokes fun at them all. Whether it’s a mostly naked Guy towards the end or Rock in a sea shell bikini, nobody is safe. Including the viewers based on that description. But with it playing with training aspects brought into the oceanside beach and what everyone has to go through in dealing with Guy, they hit a lot of good quick hits and keep the humor flowing throughout. I also liked that this was yet another episode that drew on the cast as a whole and used more of the characters than just the usual core group.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
